Murray & Roberts Cut 28% of Mideast Jobs as Qatar Orders Stall

Murray & Roberts Holdings Ltd.,
builder of Dubai’s sail-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel, has cut more
than a quarter of its workforce in the Middle East on slower-
than-expected tenders for work in Qatar.

South Africa’s second-largest construction company
dismissed about 28 percent of its employees in the region “to
resize ourselves to market conditions,” Johan Fourie, the
builder’s human resources director, said today by telephone.
About 200 employees remain, he said.

Contracts for work in Qatar, which is hosting soccer’s
World Cup in 2022, haven’t been tendered as expected, Fourie
said. The Persian Gulf state plans to build nine stadiums,
hotels, a railway and other infrastructure to host the
tournament.

Construction declined in the United Arab Emirates, Murray &
Roberts’ Middle East base, after about $757 billion of projects
were delayed or aborted following the collapse of property
prices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Citigroup said in an Oct. 16
report. The total was more than Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi
Arabia and Qatar combined, the bank said.

“The company is actively pursuing tender opportunities
within the Middle East and we are confident about the industry’s
future in the region,” Fourie said.

Murray & Roberts and joint-venture partner Al Habtoor
Leighton Group built the Sorbonne University campus in Abu Dhabi
and the St. Regis Hotel and Residences on Saadiyat Island. The
contractor also worked on the 3 billion-dirham ($817 million)
Zayed University campus in Abu Dhabi and a 2.2 billion-dirham
Abu Dhabi hospital project.

Qatar promised FIFA, soccer’s governing body, that it would
more than double hotel and apartment rooms to 84,000 and build a
$25 billion rail and metro network. Murray & Roberts constructed
some of the stadiums for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and
was part of the group that built Africa’s first rapid rail in
Johannesburg ahead of the tournament.